Read Online The Secret Eleanor by Cecelia Holland - Free Book Online

and he turned to Henry.
    “Where in the devil’s name were you?” Anjou waved off the spies and turned to sit down by the table. He slumped on the bench, one arm sprawled across the silk table cover, and took a cup of wine in the other hand. The spies retreated, bowing.
    “I went to the Studium,” Henry said. “You know, they have people there who think. It’s an interesting experience.” He put his hands on his hips, looking from his father to his brother and back again. “What are you going to do now, anyway? Now that you’ve walked us in here like this and there’s no way out.”
    His brother said, “You were all day at the Studium?” He raised his cup and slurped at it.
    “Did anything happen?” Henry said.
    His father tossed his empty cup aside. He was getting drunk, if not already there. “I’m minded to go on home and forget the whole thing.” He said this so slurred he repeated it, more clearly. “Forget the whole thing.”
    Henry turned toward the middle of the hall. His knight Robert stood there, waiting for orders, and he crooked a finger at him. “Go find those other men and get them here.”
    “Yes, my lord.”
    On his far side his brother Geoffrey spoke out of the gloom. “Gisors castle. Did you hear that? He wants us to give up the castle of Gisors in exchange for accepting your homage. Does that make sense? We should not show them homage for Normandy and also give up something, especially a position that important.”
    Henry wheeled on his father. “What’s this?”
    Anjou leaned heavily on his forearm on the table. There was a litter of gear on it: crossbow bolts, a broken spur. Anjou’s fingers padded aimlessly over the rucked silk. “They sent a messenger while you were gone.” He sneered, as if Henry’s being gone had made this happen. “They want you to swear homage for Normandy, as promised, in two days, and we’re to give up the fortress at Gisors in return.”
    Henry did not speak for a moment. Into his mind came the image of the big tower that dominated the border there at Gisors. His belly tightened. Giving up anything was like having a piece cut out of his flesh.
    His father said, “We can just go back to Angers. The devil take the excommunication. The devil take us. Just not Gisors.”
    Henry struggled with the two things: giving up a corner of his realm, and getting his hands on Eleanor and her duchy. He said, “There are certain—advantages—to doing what they want. I have to give homage for Normandy; that duty goes back a hundred years or more, to the first dukes. But if I do, Louis as my overlord has to defend that border. Even against King Stephen. It breaks any chance of an alliance between him and King Stephen. I can turn my back on France and go after England.” It was England, and the crown, that made him worthy of her.
    His father grunted. His cheeks were flushed. “England. I don’t think we’ll ever get England. Even your mother gave up trying.”
    Geoffrey sneered at Henry. “You’ve had your chances, and I didn’t notice you did all that well either.”
    “I haven’t stopped,” Henry said.
    “You’re making us the laughingstock of Christendom.”
    The Count sprawled on the bench. “Shut up, both of you. We could spit in Louis’s face. I go back to Angers, Henry, you to Rouen, and fortify the whole country. Geoffrey could go down to Mirebeau, Chinon, and those other castles.” His head swayed to the other side, the other son. “Those will be yours, Geoffrey.” He nodded toward his namesake. “Then dare this wetnose king to come get us. Dare them all.”
    Henry stiffened. Lately his father had been implying that he intended to give Geoffrey some land out of Anjou; his temper rose. Geoffrey was no good at anything, and a sneaking little liar on top of it. There was no sense giving him a crumb.
    “I have every intention of taking England,” he said. “The old King wrote me into the list of succession.” He began to walk around before